How CMOs Can Know If Their Marketing Campaigns Work

Key metrics can help CMOs determine success or failure of a given campaign. Shutterstock

The days of throwing a marketing campaign out there and seeing if it sticks by counting how many new customers you end up getting are long gone. There is no way around becoming completely accountable for the marketing campaigns you approve. In some ways, that is great for you and the marketing team because it means you can get a better picture of just what type of marketing tactics and messages really resonate.

However, in order to get that far, you need to know what part of the voluminous amounts of data now available to start sifting through. It may seem like looking for that proverbial needle in the haystack, but technology has added a beacon device to that needle. Here is a rundown of some of the metrics that tells you exactly where you went right and where you lost track:

Predictive Analytics

One of the biggest trends to deliver real insights about what is working in marketing is the science of using statistics to identify and study patterns that may be available in the data. Predictive analytics and regression modeling put the science into the art of marketing to look directly at purchasing behaviors and delivers information that helps you respond directly to these behaviors.

Analytics companies offer a way to put this science directly into your apps, embedding visual analytics in web browsers, touch-oriented mobile devices, and more. The ability to create custom visual analytics provides additional ways to get insights as your customers and prospects use your app.

Customer Acquisition Cost

Although it is one of the simplest statistics out there, it does show you growth rate in your business. If you see that this cost is too high, then you won’t be able to sustain your business, so you need to keep close tabs on the costs in relation to what you are doing in your marketing program. This will help you focus more on what specifically works in terms of tactics and how much it costs you so you structure your strategy around those that cost the least but do the most.

As the adage goes, you must spend money to make money (although not all the time). What’s key here is determining the value you get for what money you spend, including how much money each customer will provide the business over time. This also helps determine how much you should be spending to acquire and retain customers. The value you build will also tell you what is working. This is where you can look at things like click-through rates, response rates, and conversion optimization as well as average spend per customer to see what value is being created from your marketing efforts.

Engagement Metrics

Understanding just how engaged your audience and customers are with your brand can tell you more qualitatively how your market efforts are working. You can still track this qualitative data in an insightful way by tracking what people are saying about your brand online in their social conversations, including comments on posts, feedback, and reviews. You can also examine things like social shares to see how often your articles, posts, and videos are being passed on to others. Lastly, the number of inbound links you get also says a lot about your marketing efforts in terms of the value that your audience is placing on your content and thought leadership.

The Bad Results Count, Too

The negative data is crucial for you to track as well because you want to ensure that the numbers stay low on things like bounce rate, which involves tracking the number of people who view one page on your website before they leave. If they only stay for one page and leave soon after, you know your marketing is not doing the trick. After all, you want to create the type of content that keeps these visitors hanging around for awhile so they learn all about what you can offer them in relation to your brand and products or services. If you can get that bounce rate under 40 percent, then you know your marketing is working well.

Tools That Help You Understand What’s Working

You should be filling your toolbox with the numerous tools now available that help you collect the right analytics to track your marketing effectiveness. With so many free and low-cost tools available there is no excuse not to be quantifying everything you do. There’s Google Analytics, Optimizely,Customer.io,Woopra, and others that cover everything – from website visits, CTA clicks, and blog hits to social media metrics, submission rates, the number of unique visitors, and keyword analytics.

Even for those addressing those negative data points like churn, there are solutions like ChurnZero that help eliminate that issue so you retain your existing customers and gain more. If you are using multiple analytics apps to understand what’s working and what's not, you may want to consolidate all of that data into one solution that handles multi-source analysis.

Constant Analysis

And, just in case you are wondering, there is no point in the process of serving as a CMO where you can rest on your laurels. The analysis must be continual. Celebrate the improvements and share them with your team but immediately move on to the task at hand, which is to improve on those improvements. Customers are forever changing their expectations and raising the bar on what they want from you so your work is never done. That’s another reason to fill up that analytics toolbox as soon as possible.